Battle of the flying Dutchmen: Newcastle United vs Swansea City match preview.

With the Magpies still lickng their wounds after a 4-2 mauling by some powerful Canaries, they return to their nest at St James’ Park to face another bird attack, this time from the Swans of Swansea.

In case you were wondering about the title, Newcastle United are not the only team to have a very promising flying Dutchman between the sticks. Tim Krul’s biggest competitor for the Netherland’s substitute goalkeeper slot (behind Roma’s Maarten Stekelenburg) is Swansea’s £1.5 million bargain buy from Utrecht, Michel Vorm. Like his Dutch compatriot, Vorm has also played a significant role in his team’s good start to the Premiership season. The unfancied Swans have certainly been no ugly ducklings in a fairly respectable 11th place, which is quite an achievement for a team on their budget and in their first season after promotion. However, as in our previous game against those other Premiership underdogs, Norwich City, it will be other areas of Pardew’s back end where attention will be focused, but more on that in the team news…

Before I end this section of the preview, it would be remiss of me not to mention that the recent tragic death of ex Magpie midfielder Gary Speed will finally be remembered with a minutes applause before the game, after it was postponed for two weeks at the request of Speed’s widow, Louise. Just to add to that, I’m sure that some readers of this blog will also take time to remember the recently deceased Steve Thompson, aka “Bowburn Mag”, who was well known on this and several other blogs, not least for his superb writing on all things Newcastle United.

Stats, previous matches etc…

This will be the first Premiership meeting between the two sides, with our last meeting at SJP taking place during our Championship season, where Chris Hughton’s Magpies savaged the Swans 3-0, with Marlon Harewood netting two goals with Peter Lovenkrands getting the other one. For the one before that you have to go way back to to an FA Cup tie on 28th January 1995. Funnily enough, that was also a 3-0 victory with Murton mean machine, Paul Kitson, scoring a hat-trick for Kevin Keegan’s entertaining side of the time.

If Swansea score against us tomorrow, it would be the first time they have done so at St James’ Park since the dark days of October 1980, when they beat us 2-1 in what was then Division 2 (now the Championship). As far as all time records go, see below:

All games (all comps): P 34, Won 21, Drawn 4, Lost 9, Goals For 61, Goals Against 38.

Top goalscorers this season

Newcastle United: Demba Ba (11)Swansea City: Danny Graham (5)

So all pretty much emphatically in our favour there. Of course though, this doesn’t mean that things will be so easy this time. A couple of good statistics for Swansea (but not for us) are that Swansea have (along with Man Utd) the joint highest number of clean sheets in the Premiership with seven. Getting back to their own flying Dutchman, Michel Vorm, he has also made more saves from shots inside the box (38) than any other Premier League goalkeeper this season, so Demba Ba and the gang may have their work cut out for them this afternoon.

Current form

Whilst we are seventh in the league, four places above Swansea in eleventh, we will of course be coming into this game on the back of the abovementioned defeat against Norwich, with only one point from our last four games against the big guns of Man City, Man United and Chelsea before that. Swansea meanwhile managed a very tidy 2-0 home victory against Fulham in their last game. However like Newcastle, the Swans only managed to gain a single point in the the three before that too, losing 4-2 away to lowly Blackburn, drawing 0-0 with Aston Villa and losing by a single goal to Manchester United.

Team news

Newcastle United team news

Alan Pardew’s uncertainties about his back end will continue. Of course, centre back Steven Taylor is almost certainly out for the duration of the season with his Achilles tendon. Other top centre backs Fabricio Coloccini (thigh strain) and long term casualty Mike Williamson (ankle / foot) are still something of a doubt for the game and will face fitness tests. On a more positive note though, Williamson did play 45 minutes of a reserve game against Bolton on Tuesday which is encouraging. So we may still see full backs Danny Simpson and James Perch on duty as makeshift centre backs once again as we did when we were aerially bombarded by the Canaries of Norwich last time out. If so, this would also probably see Davide Santon stepping into Simpson’s usual right back position once again.

In the middle, Sylvain Marveaux is another long term casualty with his groin. Danny Guthrie is also another victim of the groin epidemic sweeping SJP and he’ll still be out for several weeks. Cheick Tiote’s knacked knee is still doubtful. Dan Gosling will serve the first part of his three match suspension for a straight sending off offence against Norwich, although I beleive that there may be an appeal in process to get this down to a one match ban for two yellows. Either way though, he will still be out for todays game anyway. Finally, all seems to be fine at the front unless Shola Ameobi falls over whilst getting out of bed or something like that.

Swansea City team news Well there doesn’t seem to be much happening at on the injury front for the Swans. The only piece of real news being that midfielder Joe Allen will be returning from a one match suspension.

Please accept my apologies as I won’t be able to do my usual tactical analysis / probable formations bit this week owing to the time I spent working on another blog.

What the managers are saying

Alan Pardew (Newcastle United): “We know it is an important game on Saturday and Christmas is an important period for us too. Brendan has done a super job at Swansea. They have had a great start.“For us, it will be about making sure that when they come to our stadium they feel the impact of it.”

Brendan Rogers (Swansea City): “It is a game we are really looking forward to. We are going to a great stadium with passionate supporters, but we will have our own fans making the long journey, making a lot of noise and we go there on the back of a great result and we are looking to win the game.”

Well that just about wraps it up for this week except to say of course:

Howay the lads!

NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1057 articles on this blog.

maiga off?? I gotta say this concerns me less than i thought – it still worries me that he’ll be missing the same time as Demba in the ACN – and i’m not sure how’s they pair up anyway……Demba looked happy with Shola next to him, a strong CF….i liked the talk about Oliver Giroud (6ft 3…strong, good goal tally).

I hope Pardew plays Abeid (in Tiote’s absence) alongside Cabaye today as he has looked really good whenever I have seen him although I wouldn’t mind Ben Arfa as partner to Cabaye with Shola and Ba up front. That would be a real attacking line up. But I will be really dissapointed if Smudger gets the nod as he is a red card waiting to happen. My team:

Will Pards opt for same as last week, being the “safe” option (despite shipping 4 goals at Norwich?).

I hope not, cos the lack of height/heading prowess, was clearly a fault – all their goals came from uncontested headers in the box.

I really think u bring in Kadar, now or never, let the lad know where he stands. If no Kadar, then Santon is tallest, but he looked a natural for getting up the field on the flanks – could see him drifting from the centerBack role, causing trouble…

I would hope that AP has had a long hard look at the defensive qualities of Perch and Simpson not to mention the other two and done some serious defending practice with high balls into the centre, last week was totally unexceptable. Can’t help thinking that he is seriously weighing up the options of starting Kadar after the closed door game against Bolton Ressies midweek. I hope Collo is fit to start as he was a big miss last week, we might see some interesting inclusions on the bench as well.

If Collo is playing I fancy us to win 3-1, otherwise we might just scrape a 1-0 or even a 1-1.

I can’t make games anymore being a soft southerner (exiled Geordie) but my thoughts and respects will be directed to St James Park at 3pm today when tributes to Gary Speed and Bowburn Mag will be given one openly and the other in the thoughts of many fellow bloggers, family and friends, although it would be nice if Bowburn Mag got a mention. I’ve always had the hope that I could be at my own funeral to see how people thought of me. I would love them both to be there to see the love and respect they had from the Geordie Nation.